Frederick and Mikael of SPIRIT OF have a quick chat with Julliet about their start together and new album “Glossolalia”.
J- When did each of you realize in your life that you needed to be playing music?
[FREDERICK] Growing up there was an upright piano in the living room of the house where I grew up. My mother would play it sometimes. That’s probably when I first started to love music. I started playing woodwind instruments after that. Music was an escapism for me as a kid to hide from reality.
[MIKAEL] In high school, a friend of mine convinced me to take a guitar class with him, to “meet girls.” I started writing music, but it was nothing serious, never expected to do anything with it. Was 21, working in the film industry in Los Angeles. Also playing in a band for fun on the side, but writing. I realized that I would work for months on one movie, and then wouldn’t receive any kind of return on energy investment from the audience for another year, if ever. Realized that I loved the immediacy of performing live, and feeling a reaction to your work instantly. I already loved music, but playing live, I truly fell in love with the power of creation and expression that is music.
J- How did you guys meet?
[FREDERICK] I met Mikael in 2007 in very serendipitous circumstances. I was writing ambient music with my then partner Kenny Gilmore. He got hired to play in another popular LA based band. Meanwhile, I had met someone who shared the same tastes and visions. I asked him to be my new collaborator, but we decided that I would join his band instead. Mikael was a member. We ended up writing the majority of the music within months.
[MIKAEL] I was part of this post-rock/noise band as a side project to my own band. Our leader had befriended Frederick and we ended up opening for one of his projects. He joined us shortly thereafter. We had an instant connection. Of all the people I’ve played with, I believe Frederick understands the feeling I am trying to convey through music the most. I feel this is why we have collaborated together for so long.
J- Was it immediately obvious you’d end up being a band?
[FREDERICK] We always assumed that we would work together for a long time after initially writing together.
[MIKAEL] When we first started writing together in Los Angeles, I thought “Wow, this guy gets it.” When I moved to Brooklyn to go to school, I wasn’t sure what the future held. But when Frederick showed up in Brooklyn about six months later, I knew we were going to make something happen.
J- Do you think being on the East versus the West coast has impacted the sound
you create, or is it an ode to your roots?
[FREDERICK] I think that both coasts inspire us equally. We have phantoms everywhere. LA is our upbringing, and Brooklyn is our base now. I don’t think there is a “sound” coming from either place anymore, which is how we started really incubating in Brooklyn. Every band we played with or knew then were re-creating music that had already been made decades before.
[MIKAEL] I don’t think physical location affects us as much as environment does. one&9 was recorded in a barn in the woods, and it is embedded with that spirit. Glossolalia was recorded in our studio space in Brooklyn, so to me it has way more of a city grit. I really want to change up our recording location with every release, so not only is it a record of our music, but a record of time and place as well.
J- The title of your latest album Glossolalia means “speaking in tongues”. I was introduced to the word when I first discovered Cocteau Twins, as Elizabeth Fraser has used it to describe her style of composing lyrics. It obviously suits your style and the album as well- how did that term first come into play with you?
[FREDERICK] I’ll let Mikael answer that…
[MIKAEL] I was hanging out at a friend’s place in Los Angeles, and two doors over there was an underground church that would have these evening services filled with glossolalia. Just a continuous stream of gibberish would float over to us. It got me thinking about how we change our tongues depending on who we are around. How we are never exactly the same person at all times, to everyone. How so much of our conversations are filled with meaningless gibberish. I started from there, jotting down ideas that I felt would populate that world. I also write lyrics by first singing in tongues, and then translating those tones into words, feelings, and emotions; so I felt it was a good theme for our first full-length.
J- If you could play anywhere, what location do you think your music would be best suited in?
[FREDERICK] Finland.
[MIKAEL] Finland.
J- On that note, what bands (dead or alive) would you choose to tour with?
[FREDERICK] Mew, The Album Leaf, Low, Do Make Say Think, Múm.
[MIKAEL] Frederick definitely named some of mine. I would also add Godspeed You!
Black Emperor, Can, Pink Floyd, Sigur Rós, Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Mice Parade, Grandaddy, Smashing Pumpkins way back in the day.
J- What inspires you both?
[FREDERICK] Desolation.
[MIKAEL] The constant interplay between nature and civilization, chaos and structure, life and death.
J- Lastly…what genre would you label yourself?
[FREDERICK] I personally like to say “sonic ambient” music. I’m really not sure which band I would compare us to, and therefore can’t really group us into any category that I’m aware of.
[MIKAEL} I usually tell people it’s a mix between post-rock and shoegaze. Kind of feel our sound is the landscape painting of guitar-based rock.
J- Are these songs to pet cats to or run with dogs to?
{FREDERICK] We love all animals.
[MIKAEL] Run with cats, pet dogs, and contemplate the end of the world to.
(photos by Julliet M. at The Well 1/14/17)
Listen to SPIRIT OF at https://spiritof.bandcamp.com